The Warrior's Beckoning (16 page)

He seemed similarly affected, as he fell to the ground screaming and rolling, and I had to assume that he, too, was being tormented by visions of torture and darkness. The field where we cowered darkened as a black mass formed beneath us. Echoes of an evil laughter surrounded us, mixed with the sounds of frightened screams. I reached for the Specialist’s hand and took it. In response, he squeezed mine as we supported each other. We were now fighting a common enemy as we fell into darkness.

We stood together, and the echoes subsided, leaving silence in their wake. A tall figure, clothed in darkness, approached us, laughing menacingly. We stood side by side to face it.

“You cannot win, even together,” it said mockingly. “Why do you fight, even in the face of obliteration?”

“It’s what I do,” the Specialist said, smirking at it.

“It’s who I am,” I said, looking into its eyes, which burned with black fire.

The figure laughed more before speaking again. “I will break you both and harvest your souls,” it said. We remained steadfast in the face of the threat, staring it dead in the eyes. It ran at us, swiping at us with its claws. As I rolled to the side, the Specialist phased out then reappeared behind the figure.

Focusing a wave of energy toward the figure, he knocked it forward. The figure released a menacing laugh as it lashed out at him. As it took hold of him, I rose to my feet and charged it, ramming my shoulder into its back. This loosened its hold on the Specialist, and he tore free. As I moved to kick it in the side, the dark figure readied a block and backhanded me, knocking me a few feet back. Before it could seize me, the Specialist jumped into the air and kicked it in the head. It stumbled again and turned to face him.

“Annoying fleas!” it roared, sending a pulse of dark energy toward the Specialist, knocking him to the ground, hard. When it turned back to me, I focused all of my energy into a single point—my fist—and swung toward its chest. The figure roared and fell to the ground.

Immediately, I dove to the ground and placed my knees on its left arm. The Specialist pinned its right arm. We placed our hands against its chest and held it firmly to the ground.

“Looks like we got you,” the Specialist said.

The figure looked at us in turn and laughed. “What I have shown is not even a shred of my true power,” it said, an evil grin forming. With ease, it knocked each of us aside and held us to the ground with an invisible force. “One of you is almost corrupted. You know which one,” it said, circling us.

We struggled fiercely but remained stationary. We could not move, and we could not fight. “This is not the team to face me,” it added, looking at me. “Though together you are powerful, you are not united. You fight a common enemy, only to fight each other once more—one of warmth and one of cold. You can never stand as one. I leave you, Warrior, to choose your next path. To choose your true ally. Then I will destroy you both.”

A surge of hatred and rage enveloped my mind, causing me to black out. It was too much—the anguish of realizing that the dark figure had been right, that the Specialist and I could never work together as a team, not entirely. We had a common enemy, but we remained enemies as well.

At this moment, I knew it was her. She was my true ally. Only she and I could work together to defeat this entity. Our love for each other brought us close, and we were becoming one. I had to get to her, and soon. The darkness she faced must be immense, a nightmare incarnate. Wanting so much to tell her that I was coming, my mind cried out to her. Soon, I began to see what she saw…and feel what she felt.

The Beginning

THROUGH HER EYES
, I saw her past. She was a little girl, sitting on a bed in some sort of laboratory, hooked up to machines that measured her synaptic activity and psionic potential. Oddly, she seemed calm, as if she had always known it would happen. A clean-shaven, middle-aged man in a white lab coat entered. He wore glasses, and his black hair was streaked with gray.

“Do I have a name?” she asked, looking to him.

“No,” he said, brushing her off quickly. As he examined the machines, he looked toward a woman sitting behind a window about three feet above them. She nodded to him, and he exited the room.

“Well?” she asked as he joined her. They both turned to watch the girl through the glass before he replied.

“Her ESP level is off the charts. I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows what we’re thinking at this moment.”

As he said this, the girl smiled and said to the empty room, “Yes, I do.”

“Well, then, she most likely knows what’s going to happen next,” the woman said, turning back to the scientist.

“She knows more than we do. Continually, she refers to someone she calls the Warrior, a man who will arise in her darkest hour…a man of love, compassion, honor, and valor. She even drew a picture of him.”

“Sounds like a typical child’s fantasy of a knight in shining armor,” the woman scoffed. “Yet…intriguing. Where is this picture?”

“She keeps it in her room, above her bed. She says it keeps the monsters away. I have a copy of it, if you wish to see,” he said, pulling a picture from a manila folder.

“Of course,” the woman said, leaning beside him.

It felt so odd…I was seeing things through the mind of a little girl who could see through the minds of others. The picture that the two studied was of me, in uniform. I wore combat fatigues and held an M4.

“Apparently, this is the man he will grow up to become. Currently, the two are the same age. We have his name, and I’ve compiled his records.” He handed the woman the rest of the folder. As the woman leafed through it, I saw that it contained a picture of me as a child stapled to a form that listed a brief description, with my address, age, and the names of relatives. Other papers were records from my schools, doctors, and known associates.

“Watch him,” she ordered, turning back to the girl. “He may be of great value to us.”

That was the past. In an instant, the vision moved to just a few years ago. The girl, now a young woman, sat in her room, looking at her drawing of me. Often, she spoke of the day I would come to her… the day I would rescue her. A new scientist, a younger one, conversed with the same woman outside. Their thoughts and words were clear to the young woman—and, through her, to me—though they were a few rooms away.

“We’ve found more information about this so-called Warrior of hers,” he said, pulling up some charts on the computer.

“What’s this?” she asked, studying them.

“It’s an ESP test, given online. It measures all areas of ESP by giving questions with randomly selected answers. Only someone with ESP can get them correct. He scored 99 percent—higher than everyone else who took the test. He’s very powerful.”

“Almost in league with our specialist,” she said.

“Yes. Save for the combat gear, the drawing matches his current photo exactly,” said the scientist, holding up the two photos.

“I see. So perhaps something will happen very soon,” she said, comparing the images.

“He may be the one she is connecting with. He has a history of night terrors and possibly schizophrenia, which may in fact just be the manifestation of his intermittent connection with her. So far, he has not been very forthcoming about the nature of his…dreams.” He called up another file.

“Keep me informed,” she said, looking away.

The man sighed. When he looked toward the security monitor of the subject’s room, she looked up at the camera and waved. The camera was always on, and she had learned to ignore it, but she always knew when someone was watching her in real time through the camera. Her ability was astonishing.

Night terrors, possible schizophrenia, dreams…and photos and information about me. They were talking about my life and the aberrations I’d experienced in recent years back.

The vision stepped ahead a few years, stopping at a point just a few months prior to the present. The same man and the same woman stood outside the containment room.

“Do you have an update?” she asked as she flipped through the folders he had given her. She came across a picture of me, taken after basic training. Immediately, she became speechless.

“It’s confirmed a perfect match,” the young scientist said, smiling. The photo and the image were identical, right down to the pose. “We’ve also been able to focus the dark mass we tapped into.”

“Can it be applied yet?” she asked.

“Unknown. Currently the research indicates that the dark mass comprises a self-aware, sentient entity constructed of pure dark energy. We will need to better understand it before we unleash it,” he replied, looking into the containment room.

“Very well,” she said, following his gaze. “And the crystals?”

“We’re still trying to determine how to unlock their full potential. They seem to have been built to channel spiritual energy. Built by whom, or for what specific purpose, we still don’t know.”

Time jumped ahead a little more in the vision to a point just a few days before I arrived at this place. The girl was being escorted to another lab by the chief. She felt that he cared for her, and she appreciated his gentle touch and supportive words. Both of them were silent, as she already knew what he was thinking.
How can they do this to her
? he thought. She knew he felt powerless to stop it. In the lab, she met the young scientist, who strapped her to a bed in the center of the room and rolled those bizarre machines to rest next to her, one on each side of her. A heavy, clear cable was connected to each through a Y connection, and the cable ran to the containment room, where the dark mass awaited.

Though she knew what would happen, she felt anxious. She was troubled by the scientist’s plans, yet she knew that I would soon come to her and she would know a love she had not felt.

The scientist gave her an injection, which placed her into an induced coma. He activated the machines and then left the room. The chief stood with the administrator in the adjacent room, watching through a heavy glass wall. The crystals churned with dark energy, all of which was being channeled into her. Images, evil and cruel, flooded her mind, scenes of torture and betrayal. The laughter of an entity not of this world, echoed by a thousand voices, followed the images. Suddenly, the energy transfer reversed direction. Soon, the lights in the room began to flicker as the dark mass gained control.

“What’s going on?” the administrator asked, looking at the scientist.

“The dark mass…it seems to be using her as a conduit,” he said. He stared at a bank of gauges and monitors, checking various readings, but seemed not to know what to make of the readings. The
young woman read terror in his mind, confusion in the administrator, and anguish in the chief.

Suddenly the chief’s radio erupted with screams of terror and panic. “All security personnel, report!” the chief shouted over the radio.

“The shadows are alive! They’re attacking everyone!” someone cried into the radio. There was the sound of gunfire in the background, along with screams and breaking glass. “Reporting multiple incidents, at least two possible heart attacks. More reports coming in of serious injury and at least one fatality.”

Another post reported in. “I’ve got a dozen wounded, and two cases of…I don’t know what to call it…hysteria? Insanity? Possession? They’re screaming and babbling about a coming darkness and cold. Wait, what’s—” The transmission ended abruptly.

Similar reports of chaos and mayhem followed. The power fluctuated throughout the facility, and several sections went completely dark and silent.

The chief drew his pistol and spoke into the radio. “Lock the facility down, and have everyone proceed to the emergency bunker. Evac now! Get
everyone
out of here.”

The administrator turned to the scientist. “Can we unhook her?” Just as she asked, the glowing, translucent form of the girl’s spirit appeared and stood beside her body, looking down at the comatose form. Beside her stood the dark form I had encountered. The dark form looked into the camera and smiled wickedly.

“What have we done?” the scientist wailed softly. “We’ve separated her ethereal form into two halves! I have no idea what that will do to her…or to us.” He buried his face in his hands.

“Get hold of yourself,” said the administrator. “There’ll be time for analysis later. Right now, we need to contain it.”

“First we need to get everybody out. Move!” the chief said, motioning for them to follow. They left the observation room and encountered a shadow creature, thin and fast. The chief opened fire
as it charged them, and it fell to the floor. They raced through the hall and into the break room. Security guards fired down a dark hallway filled with shrieking creatures. A woman screamed and cried as a creature pounced onto her and tore into her. Its touch damaged the soul more than the body. A security guard rushed to her aid, kicking the creature off and firing three rounds into it. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet and ran into the bunker.

“All surviving personnel accounted for,” a guard reported to the chief.

“Casualties?”

“We’ve lost 70 percent of our total personnel,” the guard said.

The chief gathered his squad. “We’re going to hold here until help arrives,” he said.

“Help? From where? All external communications shut down before we could send out so much as a smoke signal. Who the hell is gonna come?” asked one of the guards, clearly petrified.

“Her Warrior.” The chief was looking down at a photo of me.
I hope you’re everything that she expects
, he thought.

The vision left me, and everything went black.

“Are you OK?” a distant voice asked. I opened my eyes. Everything was blurry, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It all went black again.

“Come on, kid,” another distant voice called. I opened my eyes and could make out seven blurry figures standing around me. One of them knelt beside me and supported me as I tried to sit up.

“Where…where am I?”

“Still in the field,” the kneeling figure said. Things started to come into focus, and the voices sounded closer.

“You just had one hell of an experience,” said one of the people standing.